the Dukakis fold in September.)
The Iowa caucuses revealed that the initiative
had passed—at least temporarily—to Gephardt, who
outpolled his closest opponents, Simon and Du-
kakis. Gephardt’s status as front-runner made him a
target for his pursuers, who, joined by Gore, blasted
his record in the media, effectively depicting the
Missouri representative as “flip-flopping” in his opin-
ions and voting record on major issues. The New
Hampshire primary marked a turning point for
Dukakis, who campaigned on familiar ground and
touted his record as the “Massachusetts miracle
worker,” claiming to have secured economic pros-
perity for his home state. “The Duke” finished first
by a substantial margin, followed by Gephardt and
Simon. From then on, Dukakis pressed his advan-
tage, winning in Minnesota and South Dakota and
then scoring decisively in what came to be termed
the “Super Tuesday” primaries of March 8, 1988,
where he secured the delegations from six states.
Dukakis’s momentum continued, and having
prevailed in California and the larger midwestern
and eastern states (with the exceptions of Illinois,
which went to Simon, and Michigan, which threw its
support to Jackson), he had locked up the nomina-
tion by the time the Democratic National Conven-
tion assembled in Atlanta on July 18-21. Gore had
withdrawn; Simon, Gephardt, and Babbitt had virtu-
ally conceded, leaving Jackson—who had run very
strongly in the South—as the only effective oppo-
nent. The convention nominated Dukakis by 2,687
votes as opposed to Jackson’s 1,218. Dukakis’s selec-
tion of Texas senator Lloyd Bentsen as his vice presi-
dential running mate stirred expressions of anger
from Jackson’s supporters, who had hoped that, as
the second-place finisher, their candidate would be-
come America’s first African American vice presi-
dential nominee for a major party. Charges of racism
were even expressed against the Massachusetts gov-
ernor, though the motivating factor—which paral-
leled the 1960 Kennedy-Johnson ticket—was the
balancing of an eastern liberal candidate with a
southern moderate, thereby increasing the chances
of acquiring substantial Texas electoral votes.The Republican Nomination Vice President George
H. W. Bush had to struggle to prove himself to be the
heir to Reagan’s mantle. Also in the running for
the Republican Party nomination were Senator Bob
Dole of Kansas, himself a vice presidential candidate
on the losing Ford ticket in 1976; Congressman Jack
Kemp of New York; Evangelist Pat Robertson; former
secretary of state Alexander M. Haig; and former Del-
aware governor Pete du Pont. Former Nevada sena-
tor Paul Laxalt, former secretary of defense Donald
Rumsfeld, and White House chief of staff Howard
Baker, after expressing mild interest, had speedily
withdrawn. Dole upset front-runner Bush in the Iowa
caucuses, with Robertson taking second place ahead
of the vice president. However, a strong campaign in
New Hampshire (amply aided by the efforts of New
Hampshire governor John H. Sununu) enabled the
Bush campaign to shift into high gear and to do spec-
tacularly well in the Super Tuesday primaries, carry-
ing sixteen states—mainly in the South. Kemp shortly
withdrew, and though Dole—who had become bitter
over what he perceived as Bush’s distortion of his Sen-
ate voting record on taxes—persevered almost to the
end, Bush was unstoppable by the time the Republi-
cans convened at New Orleans on August 15-18. Bush
raised some eyebrows over the selection of Indiana
senator Dan Quayle, whom many considered to be aThe Eighties in America Elections in the United States, 1988 331
1988 U.S. Presidential Election ResultsPresidential
CandidateVice Presidential
CandidatePolitical
PartyPopular
Vote% of
Popular VoteElectoral
Vote% of
Electoral Vote
George H. W. Bush Dan Quayle Republican 48,886,597 53.37 426 79.18
Michael Dukakis Lloyd Bentsen Democratic 41,809,476 45.65 111 20.63
Ron Paul Andre Marrou Libertarian 431,750 0.47 0 0
Other 466,863 0.51 1 0.19Source: Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections.